Dead Man's Rock Part 27

"Better trust me," I said; and something in my words again made her look down.

"You will trust me?" I pleaded, and the something in my words grew plainer.

Still no answer.

"Oh, trust me!"

The hand quivered in mine an instant, the eyes looked up and laughed once more. "I will trust you," she said--"not to move from this spot until I am out of sight."

Then with a light "Good-bye" she was gone, and I was left to vaguely comprehend my loss.

Before long I had seen her a third time and yet once again. I had learnt her name to be Luttrell--Claire Luttrell; how often did I not say the words over to myself? I had also confided in Tom and received his hearty condolence, Tom being in that stage of youth which despises all of which it knows nothing--love especially, as a thing contrary to nature's uniformity. So Tom was youthfully cynical, and therefore by strange inference put on the airs of superior age; was also sceptical of my description, especially a certain comparison of her eyes to stars, though a very similar trope occurred somewhere in the tragedy. Indeed therein Francesca's eyes were likened to the Pleiads, being apparently (as I pointed out with some asperity) seven in number, and one of them lost.

I had also seen Mrs. Luttrell, a worn and timid woman, with weak blue eyes and all the manner of the professional invalid. I say this now, but in those days she was in my eyes a celestial being mysteriously clothed in earth's infirmities--as how should the mother of Claire be anything else? Somehow I won the favour of this faded creature-- chiefly, I suspect, because she liked so well to be left alone.

All day long she would sit contentedly watching the river and waiting for Claire, yet only anxious that Claire should be happy. All her heart centred on her child, and often, in spite of our friendliness, I caught her glancing from Claire to me with a jealous look, as though the mother guessed what the child suspected but dimly, if at all.

So the summer slipped away, all too fleetly--to me, as I look back after these weary years, in a day. But nevertheless much happened: not much that need be written down in bald and pitiless prose, but much to me who counted and treasured every moment that held my darling near me. So the Loves through that golden season wound us round with their invisible chains and hovered smiling and waiting.

So we drifted week after week upon the river, each time nearer and nearer to the harbour of confession. The end was surely coming, and at last it came.

It was a gorgeous August evening. A week before she had told me that Sat.u.r.day would be a holiday for her, and had, when pressed, admitted a design of spending it upon the river. Need it be confessed that Sat.u.r.day saw me also in my boat, expectant? And when she came and feigned pretty astonishment at meeting me, and scepticism as to my doing any work throughout the week, need I say the explanation took time and seemed to me best delivered in a boat? At any rate, so it was; and somehow, the explanation took such a vast amount of time, that the sun was already plunging down the western slope of heaven when we stepped ash.o.r.e almost on the very spot where first I had heard her voice.

As the first film of evening came creeping over earth, there fell a hush between us. A blackbird--the same, I verily believe--took the opportunity to welcome us. His note was no longer full and unstudied as in May. The summer was nearly over, and with it his voice was failing; but he did his best, and something in the hospitality of his song prompted me to break the silence.

"This is the very spot on which we met for the first time--do you remember?"

"Of course I remember," was the simple answer.

"You do?" I foolishly burned to hear the a.s.surance again.

"Of course--it was such a lovely day."

"A blessed day," I answered, "the most blessed of my life."

There was a long pause here, and even the blackbird could hardly fill it up.

"Do you regret it?"

(Why does man on these occasions ask such a heap of questions?)

"Why should I?"

(Why does woman invariably answer his query with another?)

"I hope there is no reason," I answered, "and yet--oh, can you not see of what that day was the beginning? Can you not see whither these last four months have carried me?"

The sun struck slanting on the water and ran in tapering l.u.s.tre to our feet. The gilded ripple slipped and murmured below us; the bronzed leaves overhead bent carefully to veil her answer. The bird within the covert uttered an anxious note.

"They have carried you, it seems," she answered, with eyes gently lowered, "back to the same place."

"They have carried me," I echoed, "from spring to summer. If they have brought me back to this spot, it is because the place and I have changed--Claire!"

As I called her by her Christian name she gave one quick glance, and then turned her eyes away again. I could see the soft rose creeping over her white neck and cheek. Had I offended? Between hope and desperation, I continued--

"Claire--I will call you Claire, for that was the name you told me just four months ago--I am changed, oh, changed past all remembrance!

Are you not changed at all? Am I still nothing to you?"

She put up her hand as if to ward off further speech, but spoke no word herself.

"Answer me, Claire; give me some answer if only a word. Am I still no more than the beggar who rescued your boat that day?"

"Of course, you are my friend--now. Please forget that I took you for a beggar."

The words came with effort. Within the bushes the blackbird still chirped expectant, and the ripple below murmured to the bank, "The old story--the old story."

"But I am a beggar," I broke out. "Claire, I am always a beggar on my knees before you. Oh, Claire!"

Her face was yet more averted--the sun kissed her waving locks with soft lips of gold, the breeze half stirred the delicate draperies around her. The blackbird's note was broken and halting as my own speech.

"Claire, have you not guessed? will you never guess? Oh, have pity on me!"

I could see the soft bosom heaving now. The little hand was pulling at the gown. Her whole sweet shape drooped away from me in vague alarm--but still no answer came.

"Courage! Courage!" chirped the bird, and the river murmured responsive, "Courage!"

"Claire!"--and now there was a ring of agony in the voice; the tones came alien and scarcely recognised--"Claire, I have watched and waited for this day, and now that it has come, for good or for evil, answer me--I love you!"

O time-honoured and most simple of propositions! "I love you!" Night after night had I lain upon my bed rehearsing speeches, tender, pa.s.sionate and florid, and lo! to this had it all come--to these three words, which, as my lips uttered them, made my heart leap in awe of their crude and naked daring.

And she? The words, as though they smote her, chased for an instant the rich blood from her cheek. For a moment the bosom heaved wildly, then the colour came slowly back, and ebbed again. A soft tremor shook the bending form, the little hand clutched the gown, but she made no answer.

"Speak to me, Claire! I love you! With my life and soul I love you.

Can you not care for me?" I took the little hand. "Claire, my heart is in your hands--do with it what you will, but speak to me. Can you not--do you not--care for me?"

The head drooped lower yet, the warm fingers quivered within mine, then tightened, and--

What was that whisper, that less than whisper, for which I bent my head? Had I heard aright? Or why was it that the figure drooped closer, and the bird's note sprang up jubilant?

"Claire!"

A moment--one tremulous, heart-shaking moment--and then her form bent to me, abandoned, conquered; her face looked up, then sank upon my breast; but before it sank I read upon it a tenderness and a pa.s.sion infinite, and caught in her eyes the perfect light of love.

As the glory of delight came flooding on my soul, the sun's disc dropped, and the first cold shadow of night fell upon earth.

The blackbird uttered a broken "Amen," and was gone no man knew whither. The golden ripple pa.s.sed up the river, and vanished in a leaden grey. One low shuddering sigh swept through the trees, then all was dumb. I looked westward. Towards the horizon the blue of day was fading downwards through indistinguishable zones of purple, amethyst, and palest rose, the whole heaven arching in one perfect rainbow of love.

But while I looked and listened to the beating of that beloved heart girdled with my arm, there grew a something on the western sky that well-nigh turned my own heart to marble. At first, a lightest shadow--a mere breath upon heaven's mirror, no more. Then as I gazed, it deepened, gathering all shadows from around the pole, heaping, ma.s.sing, wreathing them around one spot in the troubled west--a shape that grew and threatened and still grew, until I looked on--what?

Up from the calm sea of air rose one solitary island, black and looming, rose and took shape and stood out--the very form and semblance of Dead Man's Rock! Sable and real as death it towered there against the pale evening, until its shadow, falling on my heart itself and on the soft brown head that bent and nestled there, lay round us clasped so, and with its frown cursed the morning of our love.